SAA/IP SLA on Cisco Routers triggered by NMS Spectrum (CA)

thorsten.steffen · ‎11-26-2008

Hello,

we are evaluating the function of cisco saa triggered by our nms which is spectrum from computer associates (ca).

In spectrum you can configure the tests you want to run on a saa agent.

We configured one dns test with standard parameters like time interval 60s, timeout 5000ms and some tresholds to generate alarm messages (150ms minor alarm, 250ms major alarm, 300ms critical alarm).

On the cisco router the saa agent is running on the show rtr configuration output looks like

===

SA Agent, Infrastructure Engine-II

Entry number: 529

Owner: SPM_Template_DNS_46_10.0.1.5

Tag: SPM@spectro-back

Type of operation to perform: dns

Target address: spm-test-IP2.wdr.de

Source address: 0.0.0.0

Source port: 0

Operation timeout (milliseconds): 5000

Operation frequency (seconds): 6

Next Scheduled Start Time: Start Time already passed

Life (seconds): 25

Entry Ageout (seconds): 3600

Status of entry (SNMP RowStatus): notInService

Connection loss reaction enabled: No

Timeout reaction enabled: No

Verify error enabled: No

Threshold reaction type: Never

Threshold (milliseconds): 5000

Threshold Falling (milliseconds): 3000

Threshold Count: 5

Threshold Count2: 5

Reaction Type: None

Number of statistic hours kept: 2

Number of statistic distribution buckets kept: 1

Statistic distribution interval (milliseconds): 20

Number of history Lives kept: 0

Number of history Buckets kept: 15

History Filter Type: None

===

The first issue I didn't understand is why the operation frequency shows 6s seconds and not 60s because in spectrum I configured 60s. Also the thresholds are not shown in the output.

Further I used a network analyzer to trace the monitoring traffic of the cisco router. What I saw in the trace was that every 60s the router sends 5 dns requests with a pause of 6s between each other. Every request is answered correctly by the dns server.

Does anybody know why the router sends 5 request each time interval (I assumed that he sends only one) and why there is a pause of 6s between each request?

Is this perhaps (configurable) default behaviour of the saa?

If you need further detail information just let me know.

Many thanks in advance,

Thorsten Steffen

wong34539 · ‎12-02-2008

There are several ways to monitor the delay, jitter, and packet loss levels in the network once baseline values have been established through the initial data collection. One way is to use the SAA threshold command. Another is to use a feature in the Cisco IOS mainline code called RMON Alarm and Event